Full title of this talk: "Einstein’s Jewish Science?:Looking at Physics, Politics,and Religion"

Presented by Steve Gimbel, Chair, Department of Philosophy, Gettysburg College

Between the world wars, Nazi sympathizers tried to denigrate the theory of relativity by calling it "Jewish science." The Nazis, of course, were wrong. The notion of "religious science" usually brings to mind creationism, but our two best theories of gravitation before Einstein, those of Rene Descartes and Isaac Newton, bore indelible marks of their founders' theology. How did science change in the time leading up to Einsteinto remove theological influence from physics?Dr. Steve Gimbel is author of Einstein's Jewish Science: Physics at the Intersection of Politics and Religion and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Edwin T. and Cynthia Shearer Johnson Chair for Distinguished Teaching in the Humanities at Gettysburg College.

This talk is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

In a long and extraordinary career as a public intellectual, Paul Kurtz has distinguished himself as a major contributor to secular humanism, critical thinking, ethics, skepticism and American philosophy. Kurtz’s noble life, as well as, numerous, seminal writings about these topics are worth reflecting on. To this end a panel of people who know him well will be on hand to discuss this and his effects to build a constructive secular alternative to religion.

We're about:

NCAS was founded in 1987 in the Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia area. We are advocates for science and reason, actively promoting the scientific method, rational inquiry, and education. Full info about our group can be found at www.ncas.org .